


Famous Last Words

by greyvvardenfell



Series: OC-tober 2020 [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Injury, Red Lyrium
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26928352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyvvardenfell/pseuds/greyvvardenfell
Summary: Jakariel Lavellan has always been foolhardy, but never so much as he was at Wycome...
Series: OC-tober 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1974934





	Famous Last Words

Jakariel loosed his arrow with a wild laugh, already reaching for another as his target gurgled and fell. Wycome’s palace was small, but the Venatori force was too, and his fleet-footed band of archers and swordsmen had little difficulty clearing their way to Duke Antoine’s door. 

“Come down from there, da’len.”

Jak turned with a grin. He’d scaled a marble statue in the palace’s courtyard, wading through the fountain at its base to make himself comfortable on its shoulders. Deshanna may not appreciate the humor, but he certainly did. The look of confusion on the faces of the Wycome guards that succumbed to his shots as, apparently, the statuary itself turned against them was reward enough to counter the disappointment in her voice. 

“This is a defensible position, Keeper.”

She sighed. “Be that as it may, we have news.”

“News?”

“Illian found the reason the shemlen turned on us.”

Jakariel frowned, but unwrapped his legs from the statue and pushed himself away to drop into the water below. The splash kicked up by his landing barely missed Deshanna, who sidestepped it with a grace belying her age. 

“What did he find?” Jak asked.

“Come with me.”

Deshanna led the way out of the palace courtyard, past clusters of Dalish and city elves with their ears flicking anxiously, past the human soldiers Jakariel had brought with him who stood shoulder to shoulder with their hands on their weapons and fear in the lines of their faces. Tension sizzled in the afternoon sunlight.

They stopped beside a well, covered in artful vines and reliefs of frolicking merfolk. A noble’s well, supplying several streets in the wealthiest district of Wycome. Illian and several others of his clan paced the cobblestones, murmuring in Elvhen to each other.

“Get a new staff, Ill?” Jakariel called by way of greeting.

Deshanna’s First pursed his lips and shook his head. “Nice to see you too, Jak.”

“Obviously you didn’t turn that frown upside down like I suggested.”

Illian’s eyes flashed as he glanced towards the well. “This is nothing to smile about.”

“What is it?” Jakariel made to approach, but Illian lunged to hold him back.

“Red lyrium.”

Jak felt the thrill of fear in Illian’s words. Red lyrium: the weapon of choice of Corypheus’s forces, poison to all who touched it. 

Or so the Inquisition’s scouts reported.

“It’s not going to hurt me to look at it, Ill. Relax.”

Reluctantly, Illian dropped Jakariel’s arm. He shared a look with Deshanna as she, too, stepped up to the edge of the well. Faint red light glimmered on the ripples of water far below, nearly swallowed by the darkness. How anyone had caught sight of it, much less discovered the source, Jakariel couldn’t say.

“That’s it?”

"This is important, da'len. Corruption like this has spread to Wycome's shemlen and they blame us. Do not downplay that, when you return to Skyhold."

"I won't," Jak said, but distractedly. Already he was sizing up the depth of the well, seeking footholds in the stacked stones, gauging the rope for strength. He had seen what red lyrium did… to templars, to Venatori, to the fools who followed Corypheus and allowed his influence to wheedle into their minds. Surely, like the poor shems who'd had their water tainted, the worst he could expect from such glancing contact was an upset stomach or a few days' fatigue. "Does anyone have any gloves?"

"By the Dread Wolf, what do you think you're doing?" Illian hissed. "This has killed people, Jak!"

"People who drink it. I'm just going to get it out of the well."

"You're as much of a child as you were when you left!"

Jakariel rolled his eyes. "And yet I got my vallaslin a year before you did."

To his left, Deshanna sighed. After Jakariel's mother died, slain by a bear on a solitary hunt, he'd grown foolhardy. His determination to make the most of every moment merely ensured that he would have fewer moments to make the most of. But he knew shemlen, and his easy laughter and quick tongue made him the best choice for ambassador to the Inquisition. He would have joined it anyway, with or without her permission. At the very least, having official credence encouraged some measure of responsibility.

And yet, as it was the nature of wind to blow and seasons to change, Jakariel Lavellan remained reckless.

"It'll just take a second," Jak insisted. "You want to know what we're really working with here, right?"

"Don't do this, Jak," said Illian, gritting his teeth. 

"You worry too much. I'll be right back."

Jakariel climbed onto the lip of the well. With the rope to steady him, and his years of climbing trees to fall back on, his descent was the least of his worries. "I'll call when I have it, maybe pop it in the bucket? Don't know if I'll be able to climb up holding it."

Illian sputtered, looking from Deshanna to Jakariel and back. The Keeper's word could stop him from this madness, surely. But she averted her gaze, sadness etched into the wrinkles on her forehead. "Be safe, da'len," she murmured.

Jakariel saluted over his shoulder, his laughter bouncing down the well-shaft as he began his climb. As soon as his blond hair vanished into the dark, Illian shook his head, his fingernails driven into his palms, and huffed angrily. 

"Why did you let him go?"

"He would have gone regardless of what I said."

"But you could've—"

"He is beyond my advice now, Illian. I cannot control him any more than I could control the actions of the Venatori who spread this foulness here."

"But Keeper!"

Deshanna held up her hand. "You know him. Had I forbidden it, he would only return without us."

"You— you're— you're right." Illian glanced anxiously at the well, out of which spilled strains of song in Jak's deep voice as he made his way down. How foolish he was, to risk his life for something so unnecessary. 

Illian and Deshanna lapsed into uneasy silence, awaiting Jakariel's cry of success.

It never came. 

———

Jakariel sought a new song as his journey stretched longer and longer. The light of the sky above narrowed into a small circle high over his head, straining even his nightsight against the darkness. But the red glow strengthened, its own music intertwining with his the closer he got to the jagged crystals clinging to the bottom of the well-shaft. 

"Stupid little thing," Jak said to himself, eyeing the corrupted lyrium through the water. "Causing so much trouble."

As if to challenge him, the redness flared.

He laughed. "That's all you got? C'mere, you."

Later, much later, well into his worst nightmares, Jakariel would curse himself for what he'd done. He wished he could claim that he was young, that he didn't know the risks, that he never could have predicted an outcome like this. But he found no solace in scrambling for such excuses. He'd lost too much to build a future on lies anymore.

Time did not contract, nor could he remember exactly the moment he knew he'd made a mistake. All he recalled was a brilliant needlepoint of pain, the spread of ice and fire and discordant song through his veins. His own scream surrounded him like a hurricane, seeming to buoy him back to the surface, to the care of his Keeper and his friends. He remembered Illian's face paling, the sparks of red reflected in his eyes as he took in what had happened. He remembered, in vague shapes and impressions, looking down at his own arm and seeing his skin studded with lyrium crystals, growing out of him like mushrooms on a cave wall, embedded deep in his flesh like they belonged there and already turning his fingers to crusted stone.

He remembered no more after that, until he awoke back in Skyhold, in an unfamiliar berth in the infirmary with faces hovering over him. Some he recognized, most he did not. 

And when he made to sit up, he found no purchase for his right hand. The pitying smiles of the pretty nurses told him more than he wanted to know, but he still felt his stomach seize when he looked down to see nothing, just a thick swath of bandages around what was once his elbow. He felt the world spin, and a surge of fear when he realized he could not grab hold to steady himself. 

And later, much later, well into his worst nightmares, Jakariel wept.

**Author's Note:**

> Some people may know or remember Jak as my canon Inquisitor. However, I’m developing someone else for that role, because Jakariel has informed me that he should never be in charge of anything ever, let alone an institution so important to the safety of Thedas. So he’s being reassigned to an advisor position for my new Inquisitor, which honestly fits his character better anyway. But he still needed a massive physical shake-up for his character arc, so he loses his arm too. By the time Inquisitor Hesra Adaar loses hers as well, Jak has recovered enough to help her through that trauma.


End file.
